On the Victoria Day weekend of 1946 my mother, Selma (Kater) Smith arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax, a Dutch war bride ready to embrace a new life in a new land. She travelled by train to Saint John, NB and  by bus to St. Stephen to join my father, Sidney Smith.

They had married at the Doorn courthouse, in Holland, on December 13, 1945 – five days before my father’s regiment was disbanded and he left for the UK on his way back to Canada.

On the Victoria Day weekend, seventy-one years ago, they began their married life together in Upper Mills, near St. Stephen, NB.

They never talked about the war years and they never talked about their lives before the war.  Several paths to information are now making it possible for me to see Mom as Selma, a unique woman with a fascinating story.